Israel’s War Against Palestine: Documenting the Military Occupation of Palestinian and Arab Lands

Israel’s harassment of citizens could ignite uprising, warns Arab politician

26 July 2010

MK Haneen Zoabi

MK Haneen Zoabi

By David Hearst, The Guardian – 25 July 2010
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/25/israel-arab-citizens-knesset-zoabi

Israel could ignite a third intifada if it continues to push its 1.2 million Arab citizens into a corner, claims Haneen Zoabi, the Arab member of the Knesset vilified for joining the Gaza aid flotilla.

Zoabi, who was branded a traitor for her participation in the Gaza convoy, warned that Israel was playing with fire. “We accepted a democratic, liberal state, we voted for the Knesset. But we are not just an internal issue – we are the litmus test of the whole problem. If Israel does not recognise this, conditions will deteriorate towards a third intifada.”

But she rejected any suggestion that Israel’s Arab citizens supported violence.

Zoabi rounded on a Hamas leader for suggesting her community could be used during civil unrest as a fifth column, conducting sabotage against the Israeli state. Mohammed Arman, a senior Hamas commander, had said, in a book smuggled out of his Israeli jail, that the role of Palestinian citizens of Israel would be to “harass the occupiers, disrupt their daily routine and undermine their confidence”.

Zoabi said: “We don’t accept that. I don’t even like the word violent. Israel wants us to break the law and we won’t. I did not break any laws by being on the Mavi Marmara” – the Turkish ship which was seized by Israeli forces as it attempted to break the siege of Gaza.

When she returned to Israel following the raid on the flotilla in which nine activists were killed, Zoabi, who represents the Arab political party Balad, faced death threats, and was jostled and sworn at in the Knesset chamber. She was also stripped of three parliamentary privileges. “I did not even break Knesset rules. The result is they are trying to change the law to de-legitimise me and my people.”

Zoabi, who remains under armed protection, says that what happened to her was symptomatic of a broader campaign to undermine her community

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel says 14 bills, now working their way through the Israeli parliament, are antidemocratic. These range from demands that Arab citizens swear loyalty to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, to a bill threatening imprisonment or financial sanctions for marking the event Nakba (an Arabic word describing Israel’s war of independence) with protests, and a bill that criminalises starting up or developing boycotts against Israel.

The bills appear to be the latest sign of a campaign to force Palestinians who did not flee when the state of Israel was created in 1948 to chose between their identity and their citizenship.

Zoabi said a Palestinian man’s conviction last week for “rape by deception” – after he had consensual sex with an Israeli woman who believed him to be a fellow Jew – was an example of “collective psychosis”. She said: “Usually a regime wants to free its people from fear and hatred. This one trades on fear and paranoia.”

When a policeman who shot a Palestinian car thief dead was this month given a three-year sentence there was such a public backlash the court took the unprecedented step of issuing a press release defending its decision.

Zoabi said that under this pressure her community, which makes up a fifth of Israel’s population, was changing from one that saw itself as fighting for its civil rights to one that was part and parcel of the Palestinian struggle. “It took us 40 years for us to admit that we were even Palestinians. Another 15 years passed before we realised that the peace process started under Oslo had been a disaster. The Zionist project was to domesticate its Arab citizens as the hewers and drawers of water. But the carrot-and-stick approach failed, and now we see Israel is prepared to throw away its liberal side to control us. We were passive once and now we are becoming active about our national identity,” Zoabi said.

In 1999 more than 90% of her community voted for the Israeli Labour party leader, Ehud Barak, who was to start talks with Yasser Arafat on a two-state plan.

Zoabi cites polls that say 89% would vote for a state “for all”, the formula used by Balad for a bi-national secular state. Her party still officially favours a two-state plan. But Zoabi has expressed doubt that the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, could negotiate any state from Israel “bigger than a local authority”. She said: “We did not immigrate to Israel. Israel immigrated to us. We are the indigenous people of a land from which we are being gradually expelled.”


The complete IOA coverage of Haneen Zoabi

Back to Top

Readers are welcome to discuss IOA content on our Facebook page. To participate, please click HERE.

Please support the IOA so that we can continue covering the Israeli Occupation. To help, please click HERE.

Previous post:

Next post: